CNN's Burnett Mainstreams Anti-Gay, Anti-Muslim Pastor

CNN's Erin Burnett hosted the Rev. Robert Jeffress to discuss the role of social issues in the campaign. But Burnett ignored Jeffress' history of inflammatory rhetoric, including attacks on gays and Muslims.

On the September 26 edition of CNN's OutFront, Burnett interviewed Jeffress, the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, about the role of social issues in the 2012 presidential campaign. During the segment, Jeffress repeatedly stated that Mitt Romney should embrace extreme right-wing social policies in order to draw evangelical voters to the polls, and that Romney should use the upcoming debates to clearly state his opposition to abortion and gay marriage.

While Burnett acknowledged that Jeffress once called Mormonism a cult, she didn't disclose his history of vicious attacks on gays, Muslims, and members of other religions -- a history that should disqualify him from being mainstreamed on media outlets such as CNN.

In 1998, Jeffress attempted to prohibit public libraries from lending books about children with gay parents. A New York Timesarticle written at the time quoted Jeffress as justifying his protest because homosexuality causes "the death of tens of thousands every year through AIDS."

Since then, Jeffress has continued his anti-gay campaign. In a recent statement on his radio program, Jeffress claimed that there are "a disproportionate amount of assaults against children by homosexuals than by heterosexuals, you can't deny that, and the reason is very clear: homosexuality is perverse, it represents a degradation of a person's mind and if a person will sink that low and there are no restraints from God's law, then there is no telling to whatever sins he will commit as well." Jeffress also recently called homosexuality a "miserable lifestyle" and equated it with bestiality, incest, and pedophilia.

In addition, Jeffress has a history of anti-Muslim rhetoric. In 2010, Jeffress called Islam an "evil" and "violent" religion that "promotes pedophilia." In his 2011 speech at the Values Voter Summit, Jeffress not only attacked Islam as "a heresy from the pit of hell," he also attacked Mormons and Judaism:

JEFFRESS: I think part of the problem is we're in this consumer mentality as a church where we have the idea that our job is to build as big of a church as we possibly can. And if we get into that idea and fall into that trap, then we say then we can't say anything that's going to offend people, why, if we preach that homosexuality is an abomination to God we better not preach that because that's going to offend the gays or people who know gay people, if we tell people what the Bible says that every other religion in the world is wrong: Islam is wrong, it is a heresy from the pit of Hell; Mormonism is wrong, it is a heresy from the pit of Hell; Judaism, you can't be saved being a Jew, you know who said that by the way, the three greatest Jews in the New Testament, Peter, Paul, and Jesus Christ, they all said Judaism won't do it, it's faith in Jesus Christ.

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